Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024) Review!!

Synopsis – Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent get stranded in 1950s rural Appalachia and discover a small community haunted by witches, led by the Crooked Man.

My Take – To the general public, the best introduction to Hellboy, the popular Dark Horse Comics character, has been the Guillermo Del Toro directed 2004 feature and its 2008 sequel. While both were generally well received and became modest box office successes, a third installment never came to fruition.

Leading to a 2019 reboot with David Harbour taking over the titular half-demon hero role from Ron Pearlman, in a feature that aimed to appeal more to fan boys by doubling the violence and gore. Unfortunately, with a tag of troubled production, the film ended up bombing at the box office and was met with generally negative reviews.

Now five years later, a fourth live action iteration has arrived that sees Mike Mignola, the creator himself, along with writer-director Brian Taylor (Crank, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance) adapts one of his most popular source material. Most surprisingly, the new film takes a slow burning horror piece approach that strips away the blockbuster spectacle and brings its diabolic hero down to a more grounded level.

Sure, there are still fantastical creatures to fight, but it’s more location shooting and less crazy action set pieces that audiences have come to expect from the series.

However, though the intended claustrophobic feel stands out and a well-suited Jack Kesy manages to bring a distinct personality to the lead role, the film suffers from a decidedly limited budget and it clearly shows in the final product. Add to that the wacky CGI that stands out like a sore thumb.

While the gothic horror and atmosphere is fantastic, it sadly lacks the storytelling and stylistic savvy to rise above its all-too-obvious budgetary limitations.

Set in the 1950s, the story follows Hellboy (Jack Kesy), the half-demon/half-human shorn-horned, red-skinned, wisecracking, cigar-smoking paranormal researcher, who along with Bobbie Jo Song (Adeline Rudolph), a BPRD rookie, is escorting a dangerous spider by train, when an accident sees them deposited into the middle of the Appalachian forest. Where the search for a phone gets them mixed up with hillbilly witches and gateways to hell.

Soon enough the two are enlisted by Tom Ferrell (Jefferson White), a newly returned from war local, to help him save his old sweetheart Cora (Hannah Margetson), who has been bewitched by a local enchantress Effie (Leah McNamara), and has been bopping around the place doing the bidding of the evil local legend known as the Crooked Man (Martin Bassindale).

Feeling something more in line with a supernatural horror-bordering effort like Constantine (2005), the film is without a doubt a nice shift from the usual fare we’ve seen the character play within. But while this could have been a genuinely satisfying adaptation of the original Mike Mignola story the problem is, with the reduced scale, there’s also an acute lowering of stakes.

Whereas the previous films focused on how a protagonist who was created to end the world is working for the saving side, here, he is forced to mess inconsequentially around with a local supernatural annoyance in a barely populated village. As much promise as the film has, the budget being clearly a little too limited means that any of the ambition the narrative required leaves it an unfortunate loss.

The practical effects are impressive, but so much of the story clearly relies on advanced technology, and with the film already operating on a smaller scale, it results in the type of production that feels undone in spite of its promising concept. Also, despite sharing the title, the development of Crooked Man is extremely vague. His presence does not mark any type of fear or shadow above his figure.

Actually, everything, mainly in the third act, begins to change the perspective of a trashy film to a low budget post horror that is keen on being a subversive horror piece more than an unpretentious one, not causing any type of horror or even trying to.

Perhaps die-hard fans will get something out of this one, but one can’t deny that the film feels more like a pilot for a monster-of-the-week TV show that a superhero horror feature.

Performances wise, Jack Kesy is pretty good as Hellboy. He has that trademark sardonic dry wit and annoyance with the world around him. Adeline Rudolph is consistently watchable and most of the time the best thing in the film. Jefferson White too is excellent here, and his backwoods yokel character manages to steal the film away. Martin Bassindale and Leah McNamara seem to be having fun hamming it all the way. On the whole, ‘Hellboy: The Crooked Man‘ is an ambitious horror take on a classic character that is undone by its all-too-obvious budgetary limitations.